How To: Texting Etiquitte and other rules

In this segment of How To, I will be covering the basics of things I believe everyone should know and how to approach things in public because there are just too many people who don't know how to tie their shoes, but even more that can't have a normal conversation. But anyway, here are some things I thought long and hard of that you should know.

1. If you see someone in public, you don't have to talk to them. 
There's always a time when you're at an event or buying egg nog or whatever (it's already in stores), and you'll run into someone you only kind of know. Here at Elias & Friends it happens all the time. But you always feel like you have to talk to them about how they're doing or what they're doing or talk even though you've never talked before. Well guess what, all you have to do is say hello and that's it. They probably don't care to talk to you anyway so grab your egg nog and get the hell outta there!

2. The "person is typing" bubble does not entitle you to a message back. 
There was the "Read at" and "last seen" and then there's the typing bubble you'll see on iPhones. Believe it or not, there's no way they didn't read your text even if they opened it and read your message. So if you send a message and they read it, almost send something back, but don't, oh well.

3. A dinner is a date, a movie is not.
Sixth grade was a long time ago, it's time to set some higher standards. Now, this applies to more of a first date thing. I mean you're not even looking at the person. I can do that with someone for free. We'll just sit in chairs looking at a wall for a few hours and call it a date.


4. If you're going to text and walk, don't walk.
Whenever I see someone walking and texting at the same time, I can't feel sorry for them if they run into a wall. They're so slow, they hog up other people's walking space and assume we're going to move out of their way. If you're going to text and walk, do it out of the walking traffic. Quick texts are okay, long conversations are not.

5. There's a cutoff time for starting a conversation.
Whenever you decide to start a conversation texting another person, you have to remember the texting cutoff times. Sure, you could send someone a text at 3am asking whats up, but it would make you look a little weird. Only unless you know that person is awake, then you can start a conversation. But the cutoff time to start chatting is 11:30pm. And texting conversations may only last up to one hour (consecutive) or ten messages sent. Any longer than that you might as well call them. Weekends cutoff time is midnight.

6. If they're in your contacts, you must say hi.
Social media or contacts in your phone is not some other world you live in like Avatar, so if you see someone you know and they're in your contacts or connected through social media in some way, you can't snub them and keep walking. You can either talk, or refer to rule #1.